Indoor Navigation Using Hybrid Personal Pedestrian Dead Reckoning (Hybrid P-PDR)

Abstract

The proliferation of smart devices has dramatically changed how people live their daily lives. Today, on top of their initial communicator role, smart devices act as guides, companions, and aids. For a long time, people have been using navigation systems and mobile phones as navigators in their cars. Indeed, there have been interests in implementing similar indoor navigation systems using technologies such as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and ultra-wideband. However, the proposed indoor navigation solutions were either too expensive to implement and maintain, or not accurate enough for a wider acceptance. Accordingly, this paper proposes a hybrid pedestrian dead reckoning (PDR) for indoor navigation, which utilizes the built-in sensors of smart devices. As part of this study, the authors implement three approaches to pedestrian dead-reckoning namely PDR, Personal PDR, and Hybrid P-PDR-and evaluate in a real-world setting. The findings of the the evaluation shows that the Hybrid P-PDR approach, which harnesses the user’s walking pattern and signals from low-energy beacons, can navigate users in an indoor environment with a minimum of 0.77 and maximum of 1.35-meter average distance error.